Chevron seeks to dismiss 'judicial farce' lawsuit in Ecuador

Chevron Corp. filed a petition Monday in superior court in Ecuador, seeking to dismiss a lawsuit filed against it in 2003 that has descended, the company said, "into a judicial farce."

The civil suit relates to alleged environmental contamination and poor cleanup by Texaco Corp., now owned by San Ramon-based Chevron (NYSE: CVX). The allegations have led to lawsuits in several different U.S. jurisdictions and this suit, filed in 2003 on behalf of 47 plaintiffs in Ecuador who claim to have suffered from toxic contaminants.

Chevron denies the suit's allegations, and contends the $40 million Texaco spent to clean up the area was adequate.

Chevron bought White Plains, N.Y.-based Texaco in 2001 for about $44 billion. The company kept Texaco as part of its name for a few years before dropping it and taking the name Chevron again in 2005.

Because evidence is not being handled correctly, because plaintiffs' lawyers have misrepresented evidence -- such as water samples -- and because the court and other legal offices in Ecuador have ignored evidence in favor of Chevron's side, the company filed its petition for dismissal. The executive branch of Ecuador's government has also interfered inappropriately in the proceedings of the civil suit, Chevron said. High-ranking members of the government have publicly offered to support the plaintiffs and help them gather evidence for the suit.

In a press release, Chevron suggested the government might be supporting the lawsuit in order to reduce its own potentially costly obligations to clean up the area and settle any related claims.

Chevron spokesman Kent Robertson said the company wasn't sure what led to the show of bias against the oil company in the proceedings. "For a time in Ecuador the case was going quite well, along predictable lines," Robertson said. "The judiciary had the means of evaluating whose evidence was credible. Politics have certainly come into play."

Robertson said Chevron does not know when it will hear back on its petition. "The court in Ecuador moves at its own pace," he said. "We have motions filed on the first day of the trial that were supposed to be addressed in three days and they're still outstanding."

Chevron also moved to have this suit dismissed in 2003, when it was first filed.

A similar lawsuit, filed in 2006 on behalf of three Ecuadoreans was dismissed in U.S. District Court in August because the three people had lied about having cancer themselves or about family members who had cancer.

Judge William Alsup dismissed personal injury claims by the three plaintiffs at that time, saying the "case was manufactured by plaintiffs' counsel." Four other people's claims still remain to be resolved in that case.

Lawsuits in the matter are also complicated because Petroecuador, a local company that has owned the oil fields since 1992, has spilled oil there and not cleaned it up adequately, Chevron said. Petroecuador, or Empresa Estatal Petróleos del Ecuador, is the national oil company of Ecuador, owned by the government.